New Delhi, Sep 8 (UNI) India scaled another peak on Tuesday as the cumulative tests for COVID-19 surpassed five crore. The country has come a long way since January 2020 when it conducted just one test from the lab at National Institute of Virology, Pune to 5,06,50,128 today. As many as 10,98,621 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours testifying the enlarged testing capacity in the country.
The average daily tests conducted (week wise) are demonstrating a consistent increase. This has registered a 3.2 times expansion from 3,26,971 cases in the third week of July to 10,46,470 in the first week of September.
Expanding network of diagnostic labs has given a boost to Tests per Million (TPM) which have seen a sharp rise from 6,396 on July 1 to 36,703. The testing lab network in the country is being continuously strengthened which as on today consists of 1,668 labs in the country: 1,035 labs in the government sector and 633 private labs.
These include 846 Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: (467 Government and 379 private), 700 TrueNat based testing labs (534 Government and 166 private) and 122 CBNAAT based testing labs (34 Government and 88 private).
Against WHO’s advise to countries to conduct 140 tests per day per million population for comprehensive surveillance for suspect cases, the average week-on-week data for India shows a rising improvement on this front.
